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Butt Cramp During Split Training?
I’m almost down, and yes, I’m open but that’s fine by me. 🙂 I’ve been stretching since May 2017, and started in a lunge. I had no idea how to stretch for my body so the going was slow and discouraging. I have to admit I got frustrated and gave up a lot. I’m looking forward to reaching my goal, and I would love to be in a split this summer, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I know my body will do what it wants when it wants.
Right now, my hip flexors are my problem point, although I notice I’ve started feeling almost a cramping feeling in my buttocks when I try to push my hip flexors lower. This isn’t a new sensation. I had this when I started some new hip flexor stretches and it eventually went away and I was able to get deeper into the stretch. I also had this for my pancake and middle splits, but again, with time it passed. Anyone else experience this or know what’s going on? It seems to fix itself once a new range of motion becomes comfortable, so it might just be my body resisting something new and scary.
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6 Replies
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Yay congrates!!!
There are a few reasons for a butt cramp sensation could be your Piriformis for example. A lot of people think their sticking points are one place flexors, hamstrings or quads but really it could be all of these or something else. I’m being very vague cuz without being there to see what’s going on it’s hard to tell. So instead I’ll give you some things to try….
Make sure you are fully warm (I’m sure you already do that, but for the sake of other readers…)
Strengthen the glutes and hips!!! This is so important for flexibility, we need strength too! Try doing your strength work before stretching. There are lots of great leg exercise in the lessons.
Do other stretches like sitting twists, outer thigh stretch and hip openers before splits.
Foam roll before.
When stretching try contracting the opposing muscle groups, don’t just push into the stretching muscle.
Remember to add other styles of stretches like the flowmotion and dynamic training.
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Thanks Veena!
Your point about being warm is relevant! I usually do splits at the end of my stretching session and it is still quite cold where I am, so I do start to cool off. Might be worth while to do some leg swings and squats before going into the splits. I find in the summer my flexibility is much better.
I think it might be glutes and lack of strength. I know this isn’t great and I should NOT do this but I can push myself all the way down if I grab onto my pole, so it might be the piraformis or glutes that are keeping me suspended. When I do this the stretch is more in my groin than my hip flexors.
I’m also having trouble achieving this level of flexibility on the pole, which I know is a strength thing. I’m looking forward to this being a usable and effortless range of motion – that will take some more time though!
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Absolutely agree on strengthening the glutes and hips! My splits progress was completely stuck until I started the Strong Curves lifting program. All the issues I had been blaming on my hip flexors were actually the fault of my weak glutes/quad dominance. Weighted glute bridges and hip thrusts are your friends!
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Thanks, Marilyn Monster! I’ll check those exercises out. I’ve heard strengthening the glutes helps to release the hip flexors. 🙂
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I second all that has been suggested! Here are my two cents:
When stretching your hip flexors, try to start from a 90 degree lunge, tuck your hip, squeeze the back leg glute and start pushing forward from there, keeping the tuck and the squeeze. You won’t go as far but it’s a better hip flexor stretch as you are not compensating with lower back arching plus that squeeze will help strength the glute.
A move I like doing to condition for aerial splits like Jade is to go into my split or even a fake “belly” split with V legs, lay my chest on the floor inside the front leg and lift the back leg keeping it straight. This is awesome for the smaller glute muscles.
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Thanks LatinPoler! I will give working out my glutes a try. I can’t yet use this new flexibility on the pole, so working my glutes will probably help that. Also, I find I’m gaining a new ROM, losing it, and then gaining it back again. Perhaps having a bit more strength would help it be more consistent.
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